Numerical control machine a material in a desired shape in accordance with the programs in an operational program. Because it is required to program process management, tool selection, and cutting conditions etc. and input them into the program, it may be a complicated and difficult process.
Accordingly, with the coming of an age requiring convenience for users, it is increasingly required to allow workers to simply input the shapes of objects and the machining conditions at the places where a numerical control machine is installed, without the procedure of complicated programming.
Automatic programming tools that make it possible to simply perform the procedure of complicate programming have been known in the art.
The automatic programming tools well known in the art focus on the information inputted by a user and the function of creating an NC program and allow a user to input only extremely limited information on the shapes of some tools by defining them in order to create tool paths for tools. In the automatic programming tools of the related art, the tool information is limited and not efficiently managed.
Cutting conditions for machining may depend on the types of processes and the types of materials and tools, but for the automatic programming tools of the related art, users manually input cutting conditions in person on the basis of their experiences and the manually inputted information is not systematically managed.
That is, the automatic programming tools of the related art cannot manage the information except the material information or tool shapes to be considered when selecting tools and depend on users' experiences.
Therefore, there is a demand for an operational program and a tool selection method of a numerical control machine compositionally equipped with very important information for cutting with a numerical control machine, for example, definition of the shape to be machined, machining simulation, creation of an NC program, a tool management function, a tool recommendation function, and a cutting condition recommendation function.